In the 1990s Indian state of Bihar, the only growth sector was kidnapping for ransom after official corruption brought down the economy to its belly. When people are deprived of opportunities for honest means of livelihood, they resort to dishonest means. Zero option situations drive one to explore negative options. There is a lot of empirical data available on the relationship between acute unemployment and rising crime figures which I am not interested in exploring at the moment.
Talking with many young unemployed Kenyans either on the streets or in the village gives you a picture of what is going in their minds. One told me he won’t hesitate to carry out a suicide bombing for pay if his family could be paid enough cash to justify his death. This is not at all surprising, many a Kenyan youth of Somali descent have been enlisted to fight for Al Shabaab in war ravaged Somalia. (The kind of radicalization they will undergo and import back to the country is of untold proportions.)Another one, a lady at that, told me she is wishing Al Qaeda could bomb the Kenya National Assembly.
Unemployment in Kenya and subsequent ramifications is not a ticking time bomb. History is just waiting to repeat itself, not as a farce but more fierce. The Post Election Violence that followed the bungled 2007 general elections was but a precursor of things to come if nothing is done to redress inequality and stem the tide of growing unemployment. Let no one cheat you that the Post Election violence was just about political incitements. It was a mixed grill with salad of historical injustices, misrule, exploitation and ethnic economic inequalities. The bottled up frustrations just got a vent to boil over.
If you came face to face with the violence, you would have observed that the face of the protesters was that of poverty coupled with dashed political hopes. Kids I saw grow up the other day mounted roadblocks and extorted money from me and fellow motorists. Though I was their neighbor and tribe mate, they demanded money simply because I had a car and was from the city. They told me they wanted a share of the city good life I was enjoying at their expense. They had their way because I wanted a way home. How many employed youth did you witness killing people or getting themselves killed by police fire on TV? Note that it was a killing as well as a looting spree.
Swedish International Development (SID) 2004 report, aptly titled Pulling Apart was a prescient of the 2008 Post Election Violence. They warned the government to address the widening economic gap between individuals and between the various ethnicities in Kenya. The report decried the ‘conspiracy of silence’ that the issue of inequality has suffered in the hands of politicians, stakeholders and policy makers in Kenya. It painted a grim reality on the economic disparity that exists in this country. For outsiders, Kenya was ranked then and I believe now, the tenth most unequal country in the world and the leading in East Africa.
In releasing the report, SID “hoped that key policy makers, politicians and stake holders will confront the issue in a more direct, honest and bold manner.’’ It never was to be. Inequality was left to fester, only to simmer in the form of a bloodbath in the 2008 Post Election Violence. Government was left to fumble on what has befallen the country. A commission was even formed to explore possible causes and remedies. If only they would have listened.
You don’t b have to visit Central Province and Nyanza Province to know that the former has better infrastructure than the later. Equally, you don’t have to be a professor of history to know that the economic disparities between the two are as a result of access to political power. Nyanza has suffered decades of economic neglect after independence, first in the Kenyatta regime, then Moi regime and now in the Kibaki regime. What will prevent a Luo from perceiving a Gikuyu as an enemy? He is if the state favors him with resources that you can only dream of.
The same scenario is replicated in many other African communities. The recurring massacre in Jos Plateau of Nigeria that has over the years claimed thousands of lives is linked to conflicts over resources. One community is excluded from state jobs and resources. Rightfully, it feels aggrieved, discriminated and robbed of state rights. The resultant effect is a flare up of violence. Unfortunately, it is the only way to be heard.
Back to unemployment and violence. The political impasse in early 2008 provided an opportunity for the unemployed youth to rob their neighbors for a little bounty. Kalenjins in the Rift Valley feel the Gikuyu utilized political power to alienate their land immediately after independence. They attribute their poverty to this and thus they view them as enemies. Whenever there is a security lapse or political excuse to attack Gikuyus, they exploit it to the full.
In the streets of Nairobi, every unemployed youth is dreaming up ways to get money by dishonest means. The few employment opportunities are taken up by the connected few. Whether the economy is growing or not, the plight of the poor remains the same. There is limited access to employment opportunities as the well- to- do grab all the opportunities. Take note that many of the unemployed today have college or university education. Poor families are spending all their resources to educate them but they end up in the army of the jobless.
Educated unemployment is the worst kind of unemployment. I have experienced it raw and first hand. You feel cheated, robbed and dispossessed. This is especially so when the same people who did poorly in school get plum jobs and you are left to write endless job applications without any reply.
The greatest internal threat to Kenya in terms of organized crime has been the Mungiki, a quasi religious rag tag army born out of families that were denied land immediately after independence. Made up of unemployed youths, they extort money on the roads and in the villages. They kill and maim to instill fear in the communities they operate in. Their success has been replicated in other parts of Kenya with varying degrees of success and will still be replicated in future. Economic injustice and neglect beget violence and crime.
In Nigeria, the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) attacks oil installations in the Niger Delta. Their gripe arises from state neglect in resource allocation directly accruing from the oil wealth extracted from their land. What they get is pollution and environmental degradation that has made their land barren. Their parents are poor and the youth are uneducated and unemployed. What prevents them from misemploying their energies and time in violence, crime and kidnapping? And especially targeting their exploiters?
Under the iron grip of apartheid, violence in South African townships was high. It was not targeted at the whites. It was toward fellow blacks. Why is because the white man was unreachable and thus the physically endowed vented their anger on fellow blacks. Deprivation and crime has a complex relationship.
The unemployed don’t care about the policy rhetoric spawned by government wonks. They know they don’t mean it. Just like them, I have never cared to read the much hyped Vision 2030. I know it is a lie. I read the 2003 blueprint, ‘The economic Recovery Strategy Paper for Wealth and Employment Creation ‘, commonly referred to as ERS. It was the most well written document I have ever read. But as the name suggest, it remained just that, paper. Who can trust government blabbering anymore? Worse still, the same faces!
No wonder, Vision 2030 now goes by the moniker Vision 3020. It shows the extend of mistrust Kenyans have of government promises. Unemployment figures show that it stands at approximately 40% and that there has been some sort of economic growth. In an unequal economy like Kenya, economic growth does not reach everybody. It is just up there. Unless it a down-up economic model, of which it is the opposite in Kenya, it remains just a mirage for the masses.
As we approach 2012, the frustration among the youth is palpable. Failure by government to implement their promises has made many Kenyans apolitical. That does not mean that violence will not recur, it will metamorphosize in scope, target and severity. It might be a class struggle rather than tribal.
As the bulk of Kenyan youth wallow in the throes of inequality and unemployment, resultant misemployment will most definitely manifest itself as violence and crime.
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